Ohhhhhhhhhh shit, OC...

Ok. So obviously I was nervous about going out there to get that OC certification, but if I had had any idea how incredibly, overwhelmingly, mind-numbingly painful it was going to be I honestly don't know if I could have done it.

We started out with a brief explanation of what was expected:
1. You take a several second spray of OC across the forehead and eye area from about 5 feet away.
2. You shake off the excess, take a few steps forward and then have to open your eyes for the instructor. I felt like a million little tiny knives were stabbing my eyeballs...the instructor kept telling me to open my eyes so I could acquire my attacker, but I literally couldn't force my eyelids to move.
3. You have to utilize your riot baton to take down an attacker, giving him commands the entire time, and put cuffs on him. Seriously??? If I hadn't had that instructor there pushing me along there is no way I would have been able to think clearly enough to instruct the attacker to turn his head away and cross his ankles.
4. You have to stand up, open your eyes, and move to the next attacker. At this station you will use your baton to laterally strike the opponent while telling him to "get back" for approximately 15 seconds. 15 seconds?!?!? I felt like I was swinging that baton with all the strength I could muster for about 5 minutes! I could only open my eyes to a tiny slit for a split second at a time and at some point I stopped being able to catch my breath so the "get back" went out the window.
5. You stop striking, open your eyes wide again for the instructor, and move to the 3rd station where you will use the baton in a jabbing motion front and rear to repel two attackers. At this point I can't even remember what was going through my mind except the fact that I wanted to curl up in the fetal position and cry for my mommy. The best part about this station was the fact that in order to see the attackers to your front and rear you had to actually LOOK for them.
6. The fourth station is an attacker trying to hit you while you use your baton to block from all directions. Here my brilliant plan was to just stick my arms out there and hope for the best...not so much. The dude gets instructed to straight up nail you if you don't open your eyes to look at him. So on top of the fact that my face and eyes felt like they were under a blow torch I'm getting knocked around by this damn pad that looks like a punching bag. Just to paint a little picture for you - at this time I have tears streaming down my face, my hair is all over the place, and I have snot and spit running off my chin - how sexy is that??
7. The 5th and final station is a partner-assisted takedown of one last attacker, and then you will be escorted to the decontamination site. What they don't tell you here is that you have to WAIT for your partner to finish on the other lane. Well my partner was some chick who couldn't function at all. I started trying to motivate her to get up there but in reality I was probably just screaming at this poor girl who was already in pain. We took the guy down and I started screaming commands at the attacker which were apparently quite forceful because the instructors came up to me later and said that when I started telling the guy what to do it scared them a little bit. What can I say? I thought that yelling really loud would make some of the pain go away.

From there an escort guided me by the sound of his voice because I could only open my eyes enough to get the faint outline of a shadow in front of my. He took me to the decon station which was some PVC piping with water running out of drilled holes with which we were supposed to rinse our eyes and face. When that ice-cold water hit my face I became literally paralyzed and unable to breath. So I took a step back and a deep breath and tried to stay calm. A couple of seconds later I put my face back in the water thinking the shock would have passed - I was WRONG. Every time I started to rinse off for the next couple of minutes I went through that same second of panic while I tried to make my lungs work. Eventually I was guided around the side of a building to wait out some of the effects. Allow me to clear up at this point that the water does NOT stop the burning, it simply rinses off any risidual pepper spray on your skin. I couldn't function to walk or move at all and in spite of several people instructing me to do so I couldn't quite blink my eyes to get the tears flowing. I finally just kind of fell down to my hands and knees in a weird yoga-type pose and forced myself to control my breathing and wrench my eyes open. In probably about 5 minutes the pain in my eyes started to subside but the absolute raw, horrible, blistering heat on my face seemed to be getting worse. The wind was picking up and when I could get it on my face it felt amazing so I just started to pace as much as I could.

At this point I could finally speak again and almost breath out of my nose and as soldiers do, we started sharing our stories. Everyone was just beyond miserable, but we still managed to offer eachother some encouragement and little tips that had worked to ease the pain. My company commander, CPT Hancher, had gone through first and had completed the lane VOLUNTARILY (because true leaders lead by example, not by command). For some reason it was soothing to me for him to be around...he's normally a pretty quiet man, but it was nice to have at least a couple of people who weren't coughing and gagging and crying. He was the first person to ask how I felt - to which I replied "not good, sir, not f-ing good," and he laughed. Slowly but surely the rest of our 200-person company made it through the lane and staggered spitting and cursing into the decon area. As our own pain diminished and we regained some normal function we started to help eachother. Sometimes just to offer a few words of congratulations or a pat on the back, sometimes as much as putting someone's hand on my shoulder because they couldn't see to walk or helping them blow their nose. The first 15 minutes or so were the worst, but it probably took 2 hours for the pain level to fall below a 5. As I said before, even more then 3 hours later I'm still in a fair amount discomfort. We all are. I would say that my reaction was probably in the most controlled third of reactions overall, the middle third took a little longer to be able to open their eyes or had more trouble controlling their breathing after the decon process started, and the bottom third were just hysterical - screaming and crying and hitting walls.

Like I said, I don't ever, EVER want to go through that again, but I'm glad I had the experience mostly because there was a wonderful time of bonding with and supporting eachother through the pain. Right now, though, instead of sitting in my tent with the 12 women I currently live with I would so much rather be at home. I'd give anything to be sitting in a comfortable chair on the patio with a cold beer in my hand and someone who loved me enough to bring me the next one! I'm thoroughly exhausted right now which I guess is normal considering the adrenaline dump that must have happened while my body was fighting to deal with that pain. It's when I feel like this that I most wish I could trade with Michele and have a loving husband and beautiful baby and comfortable home to look forward to at the end of the day. But really I'd just settle for a good long hug!

For the rest of the evening we're pretty much off. I'll walk to the chow hall in a little while and then brave the shower (the water is going to reactivate any leftover residue from the pepper spray). Tomorrow morning at 6 we'll start the next training rotation, but right now I have no idea what that will be.

~Jordan